A demonstrator holds a Palestinian flag as Israeli soldiers crack down on demonstrators to remark the 'Great March of Return' east of Al Bureij Refugee Camp in Gaza City, Gaza on April 11, 2018. (Photo by Hassan Jedi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

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Features » May 16, 2018

Palestinians Are Forcing the World to See Their Humanity

The Gaza massacre is a war crime. And the United States is complicit alongside Israel.

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There is little question that the U.S. decision to schedule the embassy opening for May 14 was designed to be a major provocation.

We watch a split screen. On one side: celebrations of the new U.S. embassy opening in Jerusalem. The president's daughter, son-in-law, cabinet officials, Congress members, all smiling, proud. The U.S. ambassador, longtime settlement financier David Friedman, joins Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, his family, cabinet officials, Knesset members—all waiting for President Trump to join their festivities.

The other screen: solemn faces, tears, teenagers splayed across makeshift stretchers carried by other teenagers to waiting ambulances. Tear gas so thick one can't see through it even on a television or computer screen. Sharpshooters, with live fire coming so fast that casualty counters can't keep up. It's 38 dead—just in one day. No, it's 40. And then it turns out it's nearly 60. Another 1,500 injured, no it's more than 2,000 already. Twenty-four hours later it turns out to be more than 2,400. Not a single Israeli has been killed—the dead are all Palestinians. The killers, the maimers, the shooters, the gassers, are all Israeli soldiers.

And Jared Kushner says that the Palestinian protesters, whom he defines as “those who provoke violence,” are “part of the problem, not part of the solution.”

But the split screen is an illusion: There is only one screen, framing both the embassy carnival and the Gaza massacre. The same screen includes Netanyahu and Trump, as well as people like Sheldon Adelson and the rest of their joint backers across the United States. And the same screen includes Palestinians. Some appear as they are killed in unprecedented numbers, shot by Israeli sharpshooters who claim their commanders approve every bullet's target. And the others, the living, continue to remind the world that they are here. They are human. They are a nation, and they have human rights.

Some of the embassy backers, like the evangelical Christian Zionists John Hagee and Robert Jeffress who offered prayers and praise of Israel and racist hatred towards Palestinians, claim to speak in the word of God. They celebrate U.S. collaboration with the Israeli government to the tune of 3.8 billion American tax dollars that Washington sends directly to the Israeli military every year.

Trump says the United States will always be a friend to Israel “and” support a lasting peace, only one of many such lies. The Trump administration’s decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem is about reminding the world that Israel is the strategic ally of the United States, and that Palestinians are not. This U.S. maneuver is not about protecting Jews: This is about Israel's claim to the land of the Palestinians. Israel’s mass killing of Palestinian protesters in Gaza is part of that message: Palestinian land belongs to Israel, and Palestinian lives don't matter.

There is little question that the U.S. decision to schedule the embassy opening for May 14 was designed to be a major provocation. Of course, recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and moving the embassy to Jerusalem in violation of international law and a host of UN Security Council resolutions, constituted major acts of aggression to begin with. Trump said the festivities were timed to celebrate Israel's 70th birthday—citing the declaration of the state on May 14, 1948. But Israelis' own celebration was based on the Hebrew lunar calendar, which placed the anniversary back in April. The United States chose May 14 because the day after is the Palestinians' annual commemoration of the Nakba: the catastrophe of dispossession from their land, the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, and Israel's continuing denial of those Palestinians and their descendants to exercise their internationally guaranteed right to return to their homes. And Nakba Day, as it is widely known, was to be the culmination of the Great March of Return.

But plans for the Gaza protests were underway before the embassy opening was announced. Palestinians were continuing to protest the devastation of their lives in Gaza caused by Israeli wars against the impoverished, crowded strip of land. They were protesting the 11-year-old siege that has kept 2 million Gazans locked into an open-air prison, denied food, clean water, electricity and contact with the outside world, as well as air, the right to breathe, to travel, to leave and to return. Their demands started with the right to return, guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions and specifically guaranteed to Palestinians by UN resolution 194. So the protests on Monday were not primarily about the opening of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.

Now, among the thousands of Palestinian casualties, among the scores of Palestinians dead, have been many children. They were shot by Israeli sharpshooters, whose targets were approved by Israeli commanders. Israeli Brigadier General Zvika Fogel defended the practice. In a radio interview last Saturday, he was asked specifically about the killing of children, and answered that “anyone who could be a future threat to the border of the State of Israel and its residents, should bear a price for that violation.” The interviewer says, “Then his punishment is death?” And the general responds, “His punishment is death.”

It is a familiar refrain. In another settler-colony, a couple of hundred years earlier, another high-ranking military officer, Col. John Chivington, commanded his Colorado militia to attack Chief Black Kettle's Cheyenne encampment at Sand Creek. It was November 29, 1864, in the middle of the Indian Wars raging against indigenous people across the United States. Chivington ordered his soldiers to attack the families camped in the pre-dawn morning. Some soldiers resisted, saying that it would violate the military's promise of protection to the peaceful village. Chivington, a Methodist minister, was having none of it. “I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God's heaven to kill Indians. … Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice,” he said. An estimated 200 Cheyenne, most of them women and children, were killed in the Sand Creek Massacre.

The Gaza massacre is a war crime. And the United States is complicit alongside Israel. U.S. funding of the Israeli military, U.S. protection of Israel in the UN so that Israeli military and political leaders are never held accountable in the International Criminal Court, U.S. provision of its own most advanced weapons systems to Israel—all of these actions make the United States a partner in crime and responsible for the slaughter of children, teenagers, women and men, journalists and medics.

Challenging that U.S. support, demanding accountability for both Israeli and U.S. officials, remains a critical task, however distant its completion. People in the United States should be demanding an end to U.S. aid to Israel, petitions to congress, vigils outside the White House, sit-ins at the offices of Congress members determined to back Israel's most extreme violations of human rights. All are needed, but none are sufficient. The legacy of Sand Creek, the legacy of Gaza, remain the legacies of massacres. It remains our obligation to respond.

Let's just talk about facts, why don't we? Palestine had no Jewish presence for almost two thousand years when European Jews colonized it through decades of savage terrorism and ethnic cleansing campaigns. Neither the Holocaust nor any other history rationalizes zionist racism, terrorism, colonialism, mass murder, ethnic cleansing or apartheid. The Jewish colonists are subjecting the defenseless, native Christian and Muslim population of East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank to systematic, violent racist oppression daily. The Jewish colonists are engaged in the systematic mass murder of Palestinian children. Israel is the only state that meets every one of the criteria in the legal definition of apartheid, including a miscegenation law and state-supported, violent anti-miscegenation organizations. There are over five million Jews from everywhere except Palestine living in state-built, Jews-only illegal settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The Gaza Ghetto is the largest concentration camp in the world.

These are all just simple, unambiguous and easily verified facts. This is what you're trying to defend.

Posted by Wesley Stubbs Sandel on 2018-05-22 17:01:32

What is the point discussing with someone who misrepresents practically everything I said? I never mentioned the Holocaust, for example, so where did your parting shot come from? Nor did I suggest that what happened in the 7th century (you mean when Muslims invaded and occupied most of the then Christian East?) justifies anything that happens today, though it is not unreasonable to suppose that the Jewish connnexion with Jerusalem and Palestine is not just an historical fiction. Besides, it was decided (by the UN), so, whether you like it or not (and a lot of Cypriots didn't like the invasion of their country by the Turks, or the division of the island, and a lot of Hindus didn't like being ousted from the Punjab, when India was partitioned, and we could go on and on), the nation of Israel came to exist. As to who was expelled, and who left the Israeli part of Palestine before or after the UN decision, this is a period of history that is not well documented. I think it is likely that there was violence on both sides, and that no one comes out of it smelling like a rose. But I do not seek to justify any of it.

However, that was then, this is now. I am not justifying or arguing for the purity of either side, any more than I am prepared to justify the Turkish invasion of Cyprus or the movement of German populations in Europe. Palestine was a backwater in the Ottoman Empire, and of little consequence. Some Jews had already lived there, and some moved into the area during the Ottoman period. In fact, during the Ottoman period Palestine was the southern part of Syria, and not a separate civil jurisdiction. And the number of Jews there at the time was not negligible, but it was certainly swelled by arrivals from Europe, as well as, after the creation of the state of Israel, from parts of the Arab world where Jews had lived insecurely for centuries. But the Jews who emigrated from Europe after the war, did so because they had nowhere else to go where they could be safe. America did not want them, and Canada also turned the St. Louis away, just as Roosevelt had done, so that many Jews who sought refuge from Nazi Germany perished at the hands of the Nazis. All of these are historical details that do not justify what happened on either side. We are dealing with the result of these events, and the question is what is justified now, and can be justified within the present world order?

I don't know what is either justified or possible, but the starting point is not in 1948, nor in the 18th or 19th century in America: it is what exists now. If you want to go back and settle all the old scores, go right ahead, but it won't bring peace, it will only perpetuate the misery of the Palestinians and the insecurity of Israel. There was a chance for the Palestinians to have had a two state solution long ago, and it was rejected, and the rejection was settled on the battlefield. Many Palestinians left in 1948 because they believed the Arab side would "drive the Jews into the sea," a slogan repeated for all subsequent wars between Israel and the Arabs. Some were doubtless driven from their homes, but then, it was war, after all. Things happen in war that we wish would not, but they do, and we can't continue to hold them as grievances. My ancestors were driven from their lands during the Highland Clearances, but there is little point in trying to go back and claiming the right of return to lands now occupied and owned by others. No one ever said that the source of the present world order is the outcome only of just and equitable dealings.

Since the 1967 war, precipitated when Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Jerusalem, Gaza and the Sinai and the Golan Heights, it has become clearer what Israel needs as a buffer against further aggression against it. The West Bank can now never be returned to the status quo ante 1967. It was clear that an Israel consisting of two larger parcels of land north and south connected by a narrow coastal strip was no longer defendable. Had the Palestinians agreed to peace terms in the way that Egypt did after the Yom Kippur War of 1973, there is every chance that the Palestinians would now have a reasonably prosperous land to call their own. But they did not. So, now, we are dealing with what is the case on the ground. If the Palestinians insist on the right of return, there is no chance that peace can come to the region. I don't know what the solution is, but one solution that is not viable is revisiting the grievances of the past, as you choose to do. This is my last word on the subject, berate me as you may.

Palestine had virtually zero Jewish presence for almost two thousand years until European Jews colonized it through decades of savage terrorism, including blowing up bombs in crowded buses, markets and cafes, and two ethnic cleansing campaigns in which the Jewish colonists forced one million defenseless, native Palestinian Christian and Muslim fathers, mothers and children from their homes at gunpoint, massacring entire villages, throwing bombs into occupied Palestinian homes, raping women, executing anyone who couldn't or wouldn't flee and then systematically destroying over 400 Palestinian towns and villages. Today there are over five million registered Christian and Muslim Palestinian refugees from Israeli racist terror and ethnic cleansing campaigns.

But you think that that's OK because "Holocaust."

Posted by Wesley Stubbs Sandel on 2018-05-22 15:57:32

Are you for one moment trying to deny the long history of Muslim and Christian persecution of the Jews, which was what, in fact, led to the desire to create a homeland in the ancient home of their ancestors? This really is to betray an ignorance of Jewish history that is not particularly revealing of knowledge on your part. In any event, it was decided, in 1948, that Palestine should be divided to provide a national homeland for the Jews. That nation has been threatened ever since with annihilation. Not everything that has been done in the name of Israel has been right or just, but the existence of the nation is something that those now citizens of that nation have a right to defend. Recall, if you will, that as many of more Jews from the Muslim world immigrated to Israel as those who left (or were forced out) during the war of 1948. To suggest that Jordan, of which Palestine was then a part, could not have absorbed these "refugees", and let Israel live in peace, is silly. But Palestinians have remained refugees because of the unwillingness of Arab nations to welcome them, as much as by their exclusion from Israel. It's a bit like Cyprus. Turkey invaded Cyprus, and many Greek Cypriots are now excluded from land that once belonged to them. And no doubt those Cypriots look with nostalgia and not a little animus towards the Turks who uprooted them from their homes, but the peace has been largely kept by the UN since that time. It might have been a catastrophe for the Palestinians, just as it was for many Hindu Indians who were excluded from Pakistan during partition. But these things have happened time and time again world wide. Germany lost much territory inhabited by Germans after WW I. And again after WW II many Germans from East Prussia were forced to move from their Baltic lands to Germany itself. And yet the only people that you seem to be concerned about are the Palestinians. They are not and will probably not be the last to suffer loss of their homes and farms and other things dear to them. But only the Jews are held to account. Pakistanis are not responsible for the loss of land and homes by many Hindus. Turkey is not taken to task for its continued occupation of half of Cyprus. Only the Jews, it seems, are to blame, despite the fact that, in their effort to annihilate them, have gained more territory which they are not likely to give up to a people who have never negotiated in good faith, since the fundamental premise of the Palestinian position is that Israel must cease to exist for their to be peace, and after the suffering of the Jews at the hands of Christians and Muslims, Israel is not going to permit that. So, grow up. This is not special Zionist thinking (as you anti-Semitically suggest). It is just common sense. Sorry to disabuse you of your illusions.

Posted by Eric MacDonald on 2018-05-22 14:45:17

Jews are, and have always been, a distinct ethnic group, spread fairly widely, since the Romans levelled Jerusalem renamed it, and exiled the Jews from Palestine. I'm not going to argue with you bout this. The fact that they were an identifiable ethnic group in Europe, in the Muslim world, and elsewhere (including the US and Canada, for example), and very often suffered continuous persecution as belonging to that group, makes it fairly clear that you are simply wrong. When the state of Israel came into beings, Jews throughout the Muslim world, who were never entirely welcome in that world, immigrated to Israel. And still the Arabs were not content, fighting three desperate wars in an effort to destroy Israel, and reclaim the land as a Muslim Waqf. Some Jews were certainly residents of Palestine, and had been for thousands of years, but many of the Jews who came to Israel, came, not only from Europe, but from Iraq, North Africa, and elsewhere in the Muslim world. To suggest that they do not constitute an Ethnic group is simply silly. They have been recognised continually through the centuries, and have suffered as a result of such recognition. In fact, Jews do have ancestral relationships with the land of Israel, and it is historically ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

Posted by Eric MacDonald on 2018-05-22 14:30:05

Ineptness is obviously in the mind. I would gladly say the same as you, but it is not particularly clear what it is you are inept at. I don't know what it means to withdraw from the United States (with reference to Russell Means), or how they could realise dream of illusion. Since Hawaii is part of the United States, is, in fact one of the states, itself, forming a native Hawaiian nation would be rather difficult to achieve. There was a war (you might just remember that there was) to preserve the union, and it strikes me as purely illusory to suppose that it could now become a native Hawaiian nation. What would that mean? You seem to live in a dream world.

Besides that, I have never gave my approval to racist campaigns of mass murder. I do recognise that many Arab nations over a period of generations, have threatened, and some continue to threaten the mass murder of the people of Israel. I do not know that Israel has ever suggested or engaged in mass murder. That is not to say that Israel is above criticism. But in a case where border security was threatened, given the the kinds of threats addressed to Israel by Hamas in the past, I think that Israel was justified in defending its borders, and that Hamas knew that they would have no choice but to do this, and thus actually put people in harm's way in order to make a suppose political point, part of which is its determination to destroy the state of Israel. So, don't talk to me of ineptness. You are without a doubt one of the most uninformed people that I have ever had a "discussion" with. Anyway, we differ in our views, and I am tired of you speaking about me as supporting "putrid, racist campaigns of mass murder." So chatter away. This is the end of my patience. I will not respond to ridiculous screeds from this point on.

What kind of creature confuses 'sympathy' with the racist and murderous views of zionists.

Posted by Bill_Perdue on 2018-05-21 18:52:14

Did I say that you sound like Colin Powell feebly attempting to defend My Lai?

Yes, I think I did.

Colin Powell was a colossally inept liar who only increased the weight of the anti-war movement and helped terminate US involvement in SE Asia,

The zionist colony in Palestine has no legitimacy. Palestinians have the sole right to decide the future of their nation. You're all murderers.

Posted by Bill_Perdue on 2018-05-21 18:37:51

You must be jealous - you'll never get as much as Colin Powell.

Posted by Bill_Perdue on 2018-05-21 18:37:43

I did point out that you're inept. Trying to involve decent people in your putrid, racist campaigns of mass murder, even tangentially, is just further proof of that.

"Political activist Russell Means, a founder of the American Indian Movement, says he and other members of Lakota tribes have renounced treaties and are withdrawing from the United States." We are now a free country and independent of the United States of America," Means said in a telephone interview. "This is all completely legal."The State Department did not respond. "That'll take some time," Means said." via common dreams

"On Feb. 26, a convention of Native Hawaiians announced that they had made history: they had written a constitution for a Hawaiian nation.

For the past month, more than 100 Native Hawaiian delegates had been cloistered in their version of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall: the Royal Hawaiian Golf Club, tucked into the verdant hills of Oahu island. ... With a vote of 88 in favor and 30 opposed, the delegates approved a constitution and declaration of sovereignty—the first steps toward creating a new Native Hawaiian nation." via fusion net

Posted by Bill_Perdue on 2018-05-21 18:37:04

Yep. But even you should be able to do better at them.

Posted by Bill_Perdue on 2018-05-21 18:20:52

Sorry, where did you say you live? The US perhaps. Well, the native Americans have, according to you, and absolute right to return and reclaim all that was stolen from them. So, you hate Jews. You need say no more.

Posted by Eric MacDonald on 2018-05-21 16:42:25

Eric, I'm not saying that people of the Jewish faith do not have ancestors going back two thousand years. Of course they do. What I'm saying is that Jews are not an ETHINIC group. They're just Palestinians with a different religion. Jewishness is not inherited. I bet you have no genetic connection at all to any middle east population, so what gives you Europeans of Jewish faith any more "right" to the land the Zionists stole than, say, European Christians? Your only connection is Israel is your religion and culture, not your ancestors.

Posted by Richard on 2018-05-21 16:41:51

The Jewish people are not invented, and they have a considerable footprint in the history of the Middle East and Europe. There is simply no reason to believe that the Palestine of the first century was not primarily Jewish, and that Jerusalem was the cultic centre of their religion. I do not intend to read books that teach what can be easily established to be false. When you have read a bit more history, then you might be worthwhile chatting with. At the moment your opinions carry no weight.

Posted by Eric MacDonald on 2018-05-21 16:27:42

Why should you expect there to be a great deal of sympathy for Arabs by many Israelis? Israel has been threatened with destruction by Arab nations from the very foundation of the country. And, like other people, such as Americans, the level of racism may be high in Israel, but this does not make the decisions of their leaders thuggish or uncivilised. As for the murder of civilians, which are rejected by all decent people, there is no clear sense in which groups of protesters trying to breach the border defences of a country can be considered to be civilians. Hamas is the uncivilised and barbarian organisation here. It frequently uses civilians for propagandistic purposes, as they have done in several short wars between Israel and Hamas controlled Gaza. They have located military weapons firing points in residential districts, in UN facilities, and even in hospitals. It is obvious that you will disagree with me, but I still think that in this case the IDF had no other option than to use lethal force. You disagree. Perhaps you think that Israel should be wiped off the map, as it appears. Fine, you have your point of view. I disagree, and as for bankrupt politics and racism, you are obviously a good candidate for such animadversions.

Posted by Eric MacDonald on 2018-05-21 16:24:52

Ad hominem remarks are the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Posted by Eric MacDonald on 2018-05-21 16:16:36

And your point in rehearsing all this is?

Posted by Eric MacDonald on 2018-05-21 16:15:16

As usual, you're wrong. It's more likely that the citations I provided to prove what I say triggered some anti-malware defenses.

Posted by Bill_Perdue on 2018-05-21 13:25:41

From Wiki "initial reports claimed "128 Viet Cong and 22 civilians" had been killed in the village during a "fierce fire fight". General Westmoreland, the MACV commander, congratulated the unit on the "outstanding job". ...

Six months later, Tom Glen, a 21-year-old soldier of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade, wrote a letter to General Creighton Abrams, the new MACV commander. He described an ongoing and routine brutality against Vietnamese civilians on the part of American forces in Vietnam that he personally witnessed and then concluded, '"It would indeed be terrible to find it necessary to believe that an American soldier that harbors such racial intolerance and disregard for justice and human feeling is a prototype of all American national character; yet the frequency of such soldiers lends credulity to such beliefs. ... What has been outlined here I have seen not only in my own unit, but also in others we have worked with, and I fear it is universal. If this is indeed the case, it is a problem which cannot be overlooked, but can through a more firm implementation of the codes of MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam) and the Geneva Conventions, perhaps be eradicated.'

Colin Powell, then a 31-year-old Army major serving as an assistant chief of staff of operations for the Americal Division, was charged with investigating the letter, which did not specifically refer to Mỹ Lai, as Glen had limited knowledge of the events there. In his report, Powell wrote, "In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between Americal Division soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent." Powell's handling of the assignment was later characterized by some observers as "whitewashing" the atrocities of Mỹ Lai." Powell was well paid for his lies. e

Posted by Bill_Perdue on 2018-05-21 12:17:34

Palestinians have the absolute right to return and reclaim all that was stolen from them.

Your personal attacks are inept and your political defense of idf thuggery and their savage.uncivilized mass murder of civilians are rejected ay all decent people.

Posted by Bill_Perdue on 2018-05-21 11:56:19

Except for those controlled by zionists or those who abet mass murder like yourself there are no good reasons for suppressing data and analysis supplied by AlterNet, Haaretz, Truthout and the Atlanta Black Star.

Posted by Bill_Perdue on 2018-05-21 10:51:36

So it's not "unconscionable" to massacre unarmed protestors? Really? Is this the morality of self-described Jews? If so, that's why you are so reviled around the world.

As for jews becoming persona non grata in other countries after Irgun massacred thousands of Palestinians, stole their land and drove 700,000 of them out of Palestine, didn't they deserve that, at the very least, after what the Jews had done?

Eric, you live in a mythology, a fantasy. You believe all that Israeli racist propaganda, that fake history you were taught in Hebrew School. Get your DNA checked to see how "Jewish" you are. Read your own historian Shlomo Sand.

Posted by Richard on 2018-05-21 09:56:15

Perhaps for good reasons.

Posted by Eric MacDonald on 2018-05-21 09:36:23

I won't comment on what you call unconscionable, except to say that the state of Israel was founded by a decision of the UN in 1948. There are Palestinian citizens of the state of Israel, but there are also Palestinians who reject the decision of the UN, and who believe that the only solution of the problem is the dissolution of the Israeli state, and, preferable, the destruction of the Jews themselves. These views have been widely expressed and are widely held by Palestinians and other Arabs. This is an unrealistic view and has led to the stalemate that now exists. It is largely based on misunderstanding such as yours.

First, not all Israelis are Europeans. Indeed, upon the founding of the state of Israel, Jews living amongst Muslims elsewhere in the Muslim world became persona non grata overnight. The majority of these Jews have immigrated to the state of Israel. The numbers are roughly equal to the number of Palestinians who have been considered "refugees" from that time, whereas, at the time of the 1967 war, such "refugees" were in fact citizens of Jordan. The relegation of Palestinians to refugee status in the intervening years has been a running sore in the Arab world since then, who, until the 1967 and 1973 wars when Arabs continued to believe that the only solution was driving the Jews into the sea. The Palestinians have maintained this posture since the beginning, which was only made worse by the 1967 war which was precipitated by provcative acts by Egypt, which believed at the time that it had a coalition that could destroy Israel. This did not happen, and since then Palestinians have never entered into negotiations with Israel that could have made an Palestinian state a reality. But it is simply false that the Jews in Israel are "just racist, murdering, invading, occupying imperialists." Your position is historically untenable.

Posted by Eric MacDonald on 2018-05-21 09:35:59

I have shown that zionism is racism, but the comment was suppressed for two days.

Posted by Bill_Perdue on 2018-05-21 08:45:23

Eric, you're living in a fantasy, a national myth. Go read Shlomo Sand's books, The Invention of the Jewish People and The Invention of the Land of Israel, and then come back and talk to us.

Posted by Richard on 2018-05-21 07:56:27

Phillis is right and the apologetics here by other commentators for Israel's crimes are unconscionable. The front page photo of the New York Times says it all. It shows a Palestinian teenager using a slingshot to shoot pebbles at the Israeli imperialist troops who reply with sniper fire and kill him. That's the way it's always been. Decades a go the Times had another photo just like it: Palestinians throwing rocks, Israelis replying with machine guns. How may air forces, how many navies, how many battalions of American armed troops do the Palestinians have? They just have teenagers with crude weapons. It's been like this since the Jews expelled the 700,000 Palestinians in 1948 to steal their country. Whenever there's a big outbreak of violence the Jews scream about "Palestinian rockets." In truth, the Palestinians' rockets are hardly more than toys, and few Israelis are ever hurt or killed by them. Just look at the numbers, the Israelis kill hundreds and thousands of Palestinians for every Jew killed by a Palestinian -- and the Israelis are the illegal invaders, so by the laws of war, they have the right to attack the illegal occupying Jews.

And don't tell me Israel "belongs to the Jews." Jews live in a fantasy world of their own fabrication. Jews aren't a "people", they're not a race, they're just a religion and a culture. No one is 'born' jewish any more than anyone is born Catholic or Protestant or Bhuddist. The original Jews who lived in Palestine before the Zionist conquest were just Palestinians with a different religion, ethnically indistinguishable. No Jew I've ever met in the U.S. comes from the Middle East. They're all from Europe or Russia. European and American Jews in Israel have as much middle eastern DNA as the average Japanese. They need to go have their DNA tested. "Jewish" Israel is a fraud. The Jews are just racist, murdering, invading, occupying imperialists. The European jews in Palestine should be expelled and the lands they stole returned to the 700,000 Palestinians they stole it from .

Posted by Richard on 2018-05-21 07:28:00

Certainly, racism is digusting. But Zionism is not racism, and you still have not shown that it is. This is not to say that some Zionists may be racists, and it is also possible (perhaps more so) that many members of Hamas are anti-Jewish, whether that (which is also disgusting) is racism or not. Quit simply repeating yourself, and provide at least a scintilla of evidence for the claims that you are making. Failure to do so marks you as racist, and that is indeed disgusting.

Posted by Eric MacDonald on 2018-05-21 06:51:40

Well, the illegal settlers are volunteers too.

Posted by Richard on 2018-05-21 06:49:05

zionism is racist. Racism is disgusting.

Posted by Bill_Perdue on 2018-05-20 16:09:13

Having delivered yourself of this pseudo-profundity, one is left with a definite feeling of uncleanness to appear in the same discussion with you. You might at least try to justify being an idiot.

Posted by Eric MacDonald on 2018-05-20 06:11:04

The writer of this article is hoping so badly for the same number of casualties in the Israeli side, it is absolutely disgusting and unbelievable reading it! Israelis do not need to die in order to justify their army protecting them against ruthless terrorists like Hamas and their militants!!!I really want to know if that idiot who wrote this article, will send her young kids or grandchildren to the border, after receiving multiple warnings that they will get hurt if they do that... Secondly, ignoring what Hamas themselves admitted already in their own media, that most of the people who died are their own militants, and using that number of 60 "innocent" Palestinians as a tool against Israel, is showing your own nasty agenda against Israel. Give up your vile hate and lies already, even your readers don't believe you anymore!!!

Posted by GPB on 2018-05-19 21:38:06

Any level of support for zionism is racist.

Posted by Bill_Perdue on 2018-05-19 18:00:55

eric-above- saved me a lot of typing. .the manipulation of the innocent, engineers who just build tunnels for killers instead of homes and a community, an education and religious system that teaches only hate and pie in the sky for killing [summer camps to teach kids how to kill all the 'enemy'] and not cooperating and working for peace, are all in the history of those poor people. we have seen this in history and i hope we wont in the near future see it in america. thank you, richard fine

Posted by richard fine on 2018-05-19 09:07:37

The Gaza "massacre" was not a massacre and it is not a war crime. For the most part those who died were members of Hamas, the terrorist organisation that staged the "protests" for the purpose of overwhelming by sheer numbers the defence of Israel's borders. The killing was not indiscriminate, nor was it unwarranted. We can disagree about the latter, but given the number of dispersed large groups attempting to breach the border defences, we cannot reasonably suggest that Israel did not face a threat to its safety and security.

It has to be borne in mind that Hamas does not recognise Israel's sovereignty, and that its stated aim is to wipe the state of Israel off the map. Hamas' use of fake protests to overcome Israel's defences is simply another tactic in its long fought war against Israel, and its continued exploitation of its own people, for ideological purposes. So long as Hamas continues to maintain is posture towards Israel, the blockade of Gaza will continue. Egypt has also, for good reasons, maintained a blockade of Gaza, because Hamas is a terrorist organisation which, as in the past, continues to use innocent people as shields for its continue campaign against Israel.

There is no basis upon which to consider what Israeli defence forces have done as a massacre or as a war crime. The criminals are on the other side of the border, which the security forces must defend. To allow the Gaza border to be breached would mean immediate danger both to those in Gaza, since open warfare would inevitably have been the result of any breach of the border, and to those in Israel if overrun by terrorists from Gaza. The death toll would have been much higher. The fake protests were a political move by Hamas, knowing that Israel would have to use deadly force against so large a threat, and those who die will be celebrated as martyrs to the cause. Obviously, knowing how the Israel Defence Forces would have to respond, Hamas depended upon the kind of outrage expressed here, if unsuccessful in their aim to breach the border fence. Obviously, they have succeeded with those who are less discriminating; but it is a depressing thought that for political purposes Hamas was willing to sacrifice some citizens for the kind of outrage expressed here, which is also, and not unintentionally, anti-Jewish.

Posted by Eric MacDonald on 2018-05-19 08:29:15

I suppose this is kind of tangential to the argument presented in the article. But the troops that attacked the Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek were federal volunteers, not Colorado militia.